


Something to Remember Him By

by izukillme



Series: Life in Death - Bleach One-Shots [3]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Right?, character exploration, ginran - Freeform, look. this is the only m/f ship i'll ever ship where i hc them both as fully heterosexual, rangiku isn't just the vapid woman we see - she's a lot deeper and i'm just showing that here, well it's not exactly major death if gin is already dead in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 10:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21159905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izukillme/pseuds/izukillme
Summary: Rangiku discovers that Gin has, in fact, left her something to remember him by.





	Something to Remember Him By

Rangiku breathes in, steadying her hands against Haineko’s hilt. The comforting presence of her Zanpaku-tō curls around her and purrs into her flesh, and the vibrations ground Rangiku like nothing else can.

_(Like he did, before.)_

“Come on, Haineko,” she mumbles to the temperamental sword-spirit, straightening her posture and concentrating on her spiritual realm, her inner core.

“Let’s do this.”

Her eyes slip closed and suddenly it’s like she’s seeing everything all over again. A calm enters Rangiku’s heart, a serenity and peace she hasn’t found since God knows when. Her mind and body are in perfect sync and she is hyper-aware of _everything _around her – the chirping birds, the fluttering leaves of the trees, the soft whisper of the wind on her skin, the golden song of sunlight upon the grass.

A sharp point of light appears before her closed eyes, and then she is in the most beautiful place she has ever been to – soft, warm sand under her bare feet and the turquoise ocean extending to the end of the world, and the sky, the bluest she’s ever seen, cloudless and beautiful.

_(His eyes were bluer.)_

She strikes her thoughts down the same way she would kill an enemy and focuses on the woman sitting quietly by the sea. Short, choppy red hair, modern-world shorts and crop top_, _but with the same vapid, carefree expression Rangiku knows by heart. And her catlike blue eyes carry the same weight Rangiku has always borne.

This can be none other than the reflection of her own soul – her Haineko.

“Fake it till you make it, right?” she speaks, mouth suddenly dry.

_(His voice, again. Oh, how much of her he was, is, will always be.)_

Haineko looks up, pastes an airy smile onto her face.

“Eh, who told’ja that? I ain’t no faker.” she says cheerfully.

“You’re me, aren’t you?” Rangiku says, a little firmer.

“Well… sure, in a sense.” 

“I’m the biggest faker I’ve ever met,” Rangiku tells her Zanpaku-tō. With Haineko, it’s only brutal honesty: you don’t lie to your Zanpaku-tō, you _can’t_. “That means you’re faking, too. I’m not letting you be your real self at all, and I think it’s high time we changed our habits.”

Haineko rolls expressive eyes.

“I was having a nice day till’ja came an’ bothered me. What’s it’cha want, Ran? Rather than blathering on about all this nonsense, just tell me.”

_(She sounds like him and Rangiku wants to scream.)_

“I want to stop.”

“Stop?” Haineko quirks an eyebrow and cracks her neck. “Whaddya mean, stop?”

Rangiku releases a breath.

“All this.”

She makes a vague gesture to both of them, and Haineko sighs.

“Ah, I guess I was kinda waitin’ for this day,” she admits. “Ever since then, I been waitin’ for ya to come to me.”

Rangiku doesn’t respond. Instead, she draws her sword.

“Fight me.”

Haineko inclines her head, dropping all pretence of laziness and self-absorbed vapidity.

“As you wish.”

They spring at each other, lunging like panthers, dancing circles round the other. They are one and the same, after all, so it is futile to try and beat each other. Rangiku’s blood sings with the thrill of battle, like it hasn’t done in so long. Finally, _finally _she’s fighting someone who can match her, who takes her seriously and sees who she is behind the beauty and the drink and the promiscuity.

_(He always did.)_

Rangiku roars gleefully and punches the ground, sending Haineko flying. The sand scatters and the earth shatters, but her Zanpaku-tō is already behind her and delivers the same blow to the floor. Rangiku jumps just in time, bringing her sword up and meeting Haineko mid-air.

Strike after strike and hit after hit. Rangiku’s vision sharpens as the battle goes on, tuning even more finely into her opponent’s senses. She can feel everything around her, acutely aware of every grain of sand in the air and every molecule of water in the sea.

She feels Haineko’s exact position on the ground and moves almost before she can think, caging her Zanpaku-tō in with a sword to her neck.

Haineko nods and smiles.

“You win,” she utters softly and disappears.

Before Rangiku can stop to fully process what is going on, Haineko materialises in her hands, humming in sync with her rapidly beating heart. And the words come naturally to her, like they’ve been there all along, just hidden by _some_ impassable barrier that crumbles before her now.

“_Bankai: Hyō no Ikkatsu!” _she incants, and white light comes from all around her. An enormous, ashy leopard rises from the light, pale and lilac-grey, and shakes its majestic head as it lets out a powerful roar. Its eyes shine, bluer than the sky, and that’s when Rangiku knows.

“_Gin_,” she whispers, reaching out a hand to touch the beautiful creature.

The leopard purrs into her touch, closing his eyes. His mouth curves up into Gin’s smile, and he growls in pleasure as Rangiku cards her fingers through his thick mane.

_So you _did_ leave something behind for me to remember you by. And, just like you always do, you’ve helped me grow stronger._

_Thank you, Ichimaru Gin._


End file.
